An exciting study just published (online first) in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine reveals the probability that U.S. medical physicians "recommend complementary health approaches (CHAs) to their patients." The authors used "physician-level data" from the "2012 Physician Induction Interview of the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NAMCS PII), a nationally representative survey of office-based physicians."
If you're tempted to discount these study findings because they include osteopathic manipulation, consider the following:
- Chiropractic is named first in the survey choice: "chiropractic / osteo-pathic manipulation."
- All chiropractors adjust / manipulate, but previous research (Acad Med, 2001) suggests that osteopathic physicians use manipulative therapy on less than 5 percent of their patients.
- Research also has already established that chiropractors account for approximately 90 percent of the manipulation performed in the U.S. (Integrative Med, 1998).
But wait... there's more: The authors further examined their findings by medical specialty. They found that "chiropractic/osteopathic manipulation" is the most commonly recommended approach by general/family practice physicians at 54.0 percent. Imagine that: More than half of all GP/FPs recommend manipulation to their patients!
*The results of this study also tell us which medical specialties are less likely to recommend "chiropractic/osteopathic manipulation." It seems that psychiatrists, OB/GYNs and pediatricians may take more work on your part to generate a referral relationship.
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